


i know your story (but tell me again)

by aizucream



Category: Naruto
Genre: Because canon did Sakura dirty, Canon-Typical Violence, Fix-It of Sorts, Post-War, Sakura is a little Unhinged, Slowburnish??
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 11:39:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17161316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aizucream/pseuds/aizucream
Summary: christmas fic exchange for: aloe (eeveepkmnfan)prompt: Maybe after the great big War and everything, towards the end of the series. Maybe you could write them on a mission or something?





	i know your story (but tell me again)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eeveepkmnfan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eeveepkmnfan/gifts).



> aloe, my favorite person, i hope i did your favorite pairing in naruto the justice they deserve! merry christmas!! ily :> thank you so much for pulling me out of my writing rut aha :3

Sakura startles awake in the middle of the night with a scream ready to tear out of her throat. 

She notices that her hands are shaking, too. They curl protectively around her gut, right above where a scar from a healed wound rests. _It's healed_ , she tells herself. _Healed, it’s healed. I'm okay._ But she doesn't dare look at her hands. Not when there's warmth slipping through her fingers and Sakura isn't sure if she has woken and escaped or she's still trapped in her nightmares. 

_(memories)_

A cool breeze enters from her open windows. It touches her skin and she's made aware of the thin sweat that clings to her body. Sakura inhales, prying her fingers one by one away from her body and bending over to rest her forehead against her knees. _It's okay now._ She's in her room. The windows are open and she can breathe. She's okay. 

Slowly, she lifts her hands to her face and under the moonlight, Sakura looks at her trembling hands and clammy palms. Clean. They're not stained with blood. 

She's not dying. 

The breath she unknowingly held seeps out of her and with it, a whole lot energy from her escapes as well. Much like how she felt after using the seal she has on her forehead. Except this one is bone-deep and takes more than just a few hours of sleep to heal. 

Sakura takes another deep breath and peels the blanket away from her body. A shower would do her good. It's still dark out but she can probably take an early shift at the hospital, given that Tsunade nor Shizune are not there to give her another reprimand for overtaxing herself. Ino would most likely be there for her shift. Though, Ino is less likely to call Sakura out on her bullshit these days as the blonde may be one of the people who understands half of Sakura's situation the most. 

Sakura can take care of herself, thank you very much. She doesn't need people to coddle her. 

Turning the shower on, Sakura stands underneath it. When the cold water hits her body, she imagines it washing her body in a way that takes away the heaviness on her shoulders, down and away to spiral into the drainage. Never to return again. 

She so desperately wishes it to be the case. 

***

When she steps out of the shower and comes face to face with herself in the mirror, Sakura stares hard.

Then she looks away, grabbing a towel and storming back to her room, hands trembling with intensity that makes the medic in her sneer in disgust.

She should get that mirror taken down soon. 

***

Konoha's Hospital had first been destroyed during Pain's invasion. After that, they never had the opportunity to rebuild it when the war happened. Medic camps and tents were preferred instead. Medics had been stretched too thin. Many had chosen to stay to heal civilians and anyone who came back alive from the field but many had died watching the backs of their comrades and died fighting, too.

The scar under her clothes ached and Sakura easily admits that she could have been one of those medics. 

But she _survived_ , didn't she?

“Sakura?”

Ino stands right around the corner where Sakura's supposed to turn. She holds a chart close to her body and _all_ her hair has been pulled into a messy bun. Trademark bangs gone and baby blue eyes in full display. 

Sakura greets her with a two-finger salute before she realizes. “Hey.”

The hallways are much wider now than it had been before the war. However, with Ino standing before her with nobody else to see them and no windows to look at, Sakura feels the walls closing in on them. By the uneasy glance that Ino sends the chart she's holding, Sakura thinks Ino feels it, too. 

It has always been like that for the two of them. When they were younger, growing up and all the way here. Ino and Sakura always has an innate understanding for each other. When they were little brats with too shrill voices, that natural instinct for each other was a root for several skirmishes that ended with them not talking to each other for days. When they were teens, though, it felt like that the line connecting them has faded. To Sakura, it sure felt like that. 

Ino, with her perfect team, never knew what misery Sakura has gone through. Never knew the pain of running without rest towards someone who has turned their back. Never knew the grief of betrayal that still haunts Sakura everytime she looks at said person and thinks: _When are you going to turn your back on us next? You're leaving again, aren't you?_ Never knew what it's like to be the one picking the pieces left behind from the shattered pieces of their team and make a home out of it because it's the only thing that remains of them now. Sakura has learned the hard way that there's no healing from the years of being the one left behind, being stabbed by someone who's literally supposed to watch your back. 

It's ugly. But Sakura's not saintly enough not to blame Sasuke. In fact, if it weren't for Naruto standing beside him and the newly built infrastructures in the village, Sakura would have sent him flying to at least four brick houses. Nobody can tell Sakura the Uchiha doesn't deserve it.

Ino shifts from one foot to another and it shakes Sakura out of her stupor. “Do you want to get coffee?”

That earns a raised eyebrow from Sakura. “You drink coffee now? Since when?”

The other shrugs and pats Sakura's shoulder as she motions her to follow. “You know when.”

After the war? Or was it after Asuma's death? 

“I see.” Sakura doesn't. Not really. But she doesn't have anything else to offer.

If Ino never experienced the pain of betrayal, Sakura never felt what it's like to hold someone, who may very well be her second father, take their last breath. She never had to feel the last stutter of their lungs before it stops. Permanently. She never had to feel the final, struggling beat of a heart. 

Sakura was there during Asuma's funeral. She saw the blank stare that Shikamaru gives the casket as he held Chouji's shaking shoulders tight with one hand. The other, fiddled with an unlit, but wrinkled cigarette stick. There's Ino, who sat like her spine's made out of steel. Her swollen– but dry– eyes burning with resolution as she bids her final goodbye to Asuma. 

Even now, as she follows Ino as they weave through immaculate hallways, the rigidness in Ino never leaves.

In a way, Sakura envies Ino for that, too.

***

“What are you doing at the hospital at 3 A.M, Forehead?” Ino asks before Sakura can even sit on the bench. “I remember Tsunade-sama throwing you out this morning with a few more colorful words.”

“Can't sleep.” Sakura makes a face. “And can you stop calling me Forehead, you Pig?”

Ino waves the hand holding her canned coffee. It sloshed a few drops out but the other acts like she doesn't notice. “I would kill for the break given to you and _you_ want to go back in there? What in the world, Sakura?”

Sakura admits that it's strange. But if it's going back to her apartment, sitting idly with too much time on her hands or go back the hospital, visit patients and healing whatever needs healing until she passes out, the latter is a much preferred choice. Whenever she passes out, her brain's too dead tired to entertain itself with memories that Sakura tries so hard to forget. 

The early morning air is too cold for her and she wounds her arms around herself in a futile attempt of warming herself up. She's an idiot for forgetting to wear warmer clothes but in her haste to leave her apartment, she has forgotten altogether that winter is right round the corner. 

“I mean…” She started. Ino raises an eyebrow in expectancy and Sakura rolls her eyes just to spite the other. “What else do you expect me to do? Not everyone has a schedule lined-up for their dates, Inopig.”

“You're right.” Ino smirks, smug. Like having five dates a week is something to be proud of. And okay, Sakura can admit it would be nice to date people but… with the way she is right now? No. That's a recipe for disaster. She keeps her mouth shut, though. “ _But!_ Not everyone has a newly reformed citizen of Konoha to date.” Ino nudges her with an elbow. “So, have you and _you-know-who–_ ” Eyebrow waggle– “made any progress?”

It takes three seconds for Sakura to realize what Ino meant. Then, she snorts. “ _You-know-who?_ ” She asks incredulously. “Come on, Ino. What are you? Seven?”

“I know what you're doing. Don't try to change the topic and give me the gossip!”

“There's nothing between me and Sasuke.” Except maybe Sakura's trust issues because they sure as heck are thicker than the new Konoha Walls. 

This time, it's Ino who snorts. “Oh, don't lie to me. I _know_ you, Forehead.”

“Well, there's nothing.”

“Huh.”

“ _Inooo._ ”

“Sakuraaa.” Ino mimicks. She takes a sip from her coffee and the wind blows once again. Ino stays comfortable in her pristine medic coat while Sakura struggles to even keep her ears warm. “C'mon, there's really nothing? No skimpy details you can tell me?”

“ _Nothing.”_

“Why? You spent like, your whole life chasing after the guy. What's up?”

Now, Sakura has to take offense. “Excuse you but didn't you declare yourself my rival when we were five when you found out I'm crushing on your crush?”

“Aha! So you admit I crushed on Sasuke first!”

Drat. “I don't know what you're talking about, Pig.”

Ino fake gasps. “Have you no shame, homewrecker?”

“He’s all yours.”

A hand grasps her arm and Ino shakes her lightly. “Who are you and what have you done to Sakura?!”

Sakura knows everyone is aware of her infatuation with Sasuke. She's aware that Ino's crush on Sasuke has faded into superficial territory and only pure aesthetic appreciation remains. The Uchiha might be an asshole but he's an asshole with a beautiful face, Sakura can admit. She's also made aware that everyone still thinks that her world revolves around him and while Ino has outgrown the Uchiha _fangirl_ coat, Sakura has the title tattooed permanently on her forehead. Bare for the world to see.

She punched her way through the war, healed hundreds of people and saved their lives and still, in the end, she's stuck with _Uchiha Fangirl_. What bullshit.

She didn't get stabbed by Uchiha Madara and _survived_ for it to be an afterthought to the crush she's had when she was fifteen. 

A movement startles her out of her thoughts and she instinctively searches to pinpoint its location. The movement was deliberate, precise and right in the middle of her range. ANBU, probably. For Ino or for her?

Ino notices a second later. A wrinkle appearing on her forehead as she purses her lips. “The T&I has very few people that they can't crack without me and I’m mostly on hospital duty these days.” She chugs on her coffee and throws it on the nearest trash bin. A person lands on a tree branch ahead of them just as the can drops into the bin with a _clang_. Ino tips her head. “Morning, Mister Owl.”

Owl is crouched a little too wide atop the tree branch, arms resting on their knees. “Hey. I'm here for Sakura.”

Sakura perks from being addressed. Ino, on the other hand, huffs. She stands up and pats her clothes to shrug off non-existent dirt and crosses her arms. “You can at least say good morning to me, you douchebag. Men these days, honestly.” Ino rolls her eyes and throws a grin at Sakura, pumping a fist. “See ya around, Forehead.”

“I’ll murk you, Pig.”

“Sure, sure. We'll see when you return.”

Then she's walking away towards the hospital, long blond hair swinging with the wind. 

Sakura waits until Ino's inside before she turns back to Owl. “Mission?”

“Yeah. There's no rush but I heard this one's troublesome.”

No need to rush back home and fetch her ANBU gear, then. Well, no time like the present. Might as well give her sensei a visit in this chilly morning and laugh at his misery. 

Sakura nods. She stands, stretching her limbs and cracking a few joints on her spine. “Let’s see what's this about, then.”

— _and_ she leaps for the trees, rushing towards the Hokage Tower with ANBU Owl right on her heels. 

***

“Ah, my favorite student! Good morning, Sakura-chan.”

Sakura closes the door behind her and takes a seat. “Liar. That was Sasuke. Then he left and then it became Naruto. But! Good morning to you, too, Kakashi-sensei.”

Kakashi's visible eye wrinkles in a smile. “Maa, maa. I love all my students equally.”

Sakura stifles a snort behind her fingers. “Sure, sensei.” Then she straightens up. “You have a mission for me?”

The Hokage's shoulder stiffens as he leans forward on his desk, fingers clasped together. The robes he wears are made out of light cloth, impractical and designed to withstand nothing but it's another layer of clothing to hide behind. Something of which Kakashi seems to be very fond of doing. 

“There’s a situation in the Capital that needs to be dealt with.” Kakashi pulls a folder from on of his drawers and flicks through it. “It requires a touch of… subtlety, unfortunately for us.”

A covert mission in the Capital. Awesome. Sakura's ready to deal with weeks, possibly months, of dealing with dead-brained politicians and royalties. She hooks her ankles together and makes a face. “Okay, sensei. Lay it on me.”

“See, this is why you're my favorite.” Kakashi chuckles. “The Daimyou has been made aware of a coup brewing in his midst. There have been several instances of sabotage that could easily be shrugged off as the usual assassination plots to his person.”

“Sabotage as in?”

Kakashi waves a hand. “You know, food poisoning. A poisoned candle. Seal traps that would make his skin shrivel and disintegrate were he to touch it. So far, he has avoided all of them.”

“Surprising.”

“Well, his Royal Guards _are_ skilled.”

“Fortunate for him.” Sakura comments. She replays Kakashi's words in his head and she frowns. “How is he sure that it's a coup? Could've been a single person with lots of money to pay assassins.”

There's no shortage of money-grubbing, bloodthirsty people in the Capital. After all, politics is just as dirty and brutal as being a ninja of a Hidden Village.

Kakashi tilts his head to the side. “It’s all hush-hush but many people in the capital seem to think that after the Great War, a new Daimyou should take his place.” He flings a paper towards her and Sakura snatches it mid-air. A picture. “That man is the one who the people wants. Tanizaki Junpei.”

The picture was taken without his permission, Sakura surmises. Tanizaki Junpei is a man well past his twenties. On his early 30s, at most. Posture-wise, definitely someone who looks like you don't want to mess with. Sakura begs to differ. You punch these royal-bred spawns and their dirt pours out of the cracks you made on their masks. Tanizaki Junpei doesn't look any different. He may have mastered the face of a respectable, sympathetic and a _voice of the mass_ face but Sakura has seen many masks in her life and she smashed most of them to pieces with her bare fist.

“So, he thinks Tanizaki is amassing people to overthrow him on top of the assassinations?” Sakura hums. It _does_ sound legitimate. But feeble. It could very well be a result of good ole paranoia. Daimyou is too uncertain of his position and thus, he points the blame to someone convenient and have the Hidden Leaf take care of the pest before it truly turns into a problem. Crisis averted. “Is this why we need to go undercover? 

Kakashi shrugs, tapping a finger at the edge of his desk. “Yes. And also because Tanizaki Junpei is his nephew.”

This time, Sakura snorts. A crowd favorite and an immediate relative? Well, at least it isn't all paranoia. “So… mission objectives?”

“Find out if there is a coup and cut off the major players before they hire someone who's skillful enough to do their job right.”

“Will I be doing this alone?”

“Nope!” Comes the cheerful reply. Kakashi has already pulled his orange perverted book and is hiding half of his already hidden face behind it. “Unfortunately for her, the Daimyou's senior house maid was the one who got the short end of the stick with the disintegration seal. But fortunately for you, the House of the Daimyou is now accepting applications!”

“What?” Sakura deadpans. “You want me to be a maid?”

“Maa, Sakura-chan, it's an honor to work for the Daimyou.” Kakashi giggles and turns a page. Of all the things that can survive the war, Sakura loathes that it has to be that thrice damned book. “Of course, you'll have to be as boring as possible so you're going to be married to one of the guards.”

“What?”

“I trust you can weave a marvelous and believable story with your mission partner, Sakura-chan. _Ganbatte!_ ”

Sakura gapes at her teacher. _A maid_. Sakura doesn't even know how to fold napkins for fancy dinners! “Kakashi-sensei!”

The door creaks open and Sakura glares at the intruder. “We're not yet done–”

“Yo.”

Sakura's eyebrow twitches. “Shikamaru.”

Kakashi claps once and the unmistakable wrinkle on the corner of his visible eye makes Sakura want to strangle her teacher. “Now, Shikamaru is here to be your mission partner. Shikamaru, I trust you will take care of my favorite student, won't you?”

Oh, Sakura wants to puke at the thick sugar dripping off of Kakashi's mouth. Shikamaru, on the other hand, shrugs like it doesn't bother him. “Should be the other way around but, okay.” He side-eyed Sakura. “You ready to go in an hour?”

She can be. It's not like she has to pack anything else. “It'll take me fifteen minutes to gear up and get everything else. Do I need to bring anything?”

Shikamaru pauses for a second. Then he shakes his head. “No. We'll get everything on our way. Meet you at the gate in thirty?”

Sakura gets to her feet and throws Kakashi one last glare which bounces off the man as he's too busy giggling over the pages of a lecherous book. With an eye roll, Sakura meets Shikamaru's eyes. “Twenty.”

“Cool.”

***

It takes fifteen minutes to pull on her Jounin gear, hide the ANBU one into the seals of her arm band, swipe a yogurt from her fridge and leave a note on the counter in case her mom decides to pay her a visit while she's gone.

By the time she's out on the roofs, there's exactly four minutes and thirty-two seconds remaining. 

At four minute and one second, there comes a yell. “SAKURA!”

She could run faster and pretend she's in too much of a hurry to stop. But who's she kidding? It's _Naruto_. Kami, Sakura doesn't know when or how it started but, in the middle of the walls she built, Naruto still somehow managed to squirm his way in and be the only soft spot she has. Sakura sometimes misses the time when she could still refuse Naruto without so much of a blink. Now, Naruto can very well demand to be the Daimyou and Sakura would cut down anyone who dares to stand in his way.

Still, she hesitates for a split-second, knowing Naruto wouldn't be alone. He hasn't been for a while. Not since after the war, actually. 

When Sakura turns, Naruto waved enthusiastically from the street down. Sasuke stands behind him like a shadow quite literally with his dark ensemble to Naruto's bright ones. 

Her heart clenches painfully and she masks it with a bright grin of her own and saluted. “Naruto! When did you come back?”

“A few minutes ago!” The wide smile never wavered and Sakura is so glad to see him before she had to leave. They've been away for _months_. “C’mon!! I'm so hungry, Sakura! Let's go eat ramen! It's going to be my treat!”

“You were eating just fifteen minutes ago, dobe.” 

Sasuke's tone isn't harsh. Not even a lick of distaste in his expression. He looks like he wanted to smile, with his lips pursed together, but his eyes are deep and warm, always drawn to Naruto like it has always been since they were tiny genins, only looking away for Sakura's sake.

She can't quite believe all of that is genuine. Sasuke has tried to kill her team many times. Smashed their fragile team into irreparable fragments and handed them the sharp pieces to cut their flesh. Naruto is a miracle worker with capturing hearts but this is one Sakura can't afford to risk–

_But Naruto is happy_ , she reminds herself. _If Naruto is happy_ , Sakura meets Sasuke's eyes for a second, _then you better keep him that way or I'll destroy you._

She won't let Sasuke break Naruto again if she can help it. Their team may be shattered pieces now, only held together by Naruto's brilliance, but Naruto is so _whole_ and amazing and Sakura won't forgive herself if she can't return the never-ending support he had given her when she was so, so foolish.

Naruto is smiling. If Sasuke is the cause of that, then Sakura can suck it up and make peace with the fact that he still exists. _For Naruto._

At two minutes and twenty-four seconds, Sakura bids her farewell to her teammates and pretends that her heart isn’t constricting painfully under the layers of skin and flesh, that her eyes aren't prickling with unshed tears– she's cried enough for Sasuke, but these tears? This is for grieving the team that she was never a part of simply because there was _no_ team. There's only Sasuke _and_ Naruto, Naruto _and_ Sasuke. 

When Shikamaru sees her swollen eyes, Sakura shrugs and speeds off. “Must've been the wind. I ran pretty fast.”

He doesn't believe her. But Shikamaru doesn't push and he lets her keep a few paces ahead. 

If he heard her sniffs, Shikamaru doesn't mention them.


End file.
